


three weeks, two days, seven hours

by crowkag



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: & i'll make sure to remind yall each and every time, Anxiety, BAMF May Parker (Spider-Man), BAMF Peter Parker, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, NOT STARKER - Freeform, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Tony Stark, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Worried Tony Stark, just mentions of it, thank god for may parker. brain cell owner extraordinaire, we got the whole gang out here yall, wow i love platonic relationships!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23972968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowkag/pseuds/crowkag
Summary: It was a mess. A real mess. Peter had been gone for three weeks, two days, and seven hours, taken right out from under their noses.And Tony was laying on the floor.(AKA “you’ll always get there first”, but from Tony’s POV.)
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 44
Kudos: 286





	three weeks, two days, seven hours

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [you'll always get there first](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23621467) by [crowkag](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowkag/pseuds/crowkag). 



> hey guys! this is a companion piece to another fic of mine, “you’ll always get there first.” that one’s from peter’s pov, and this one is from tony’s! 
> 
> shoutout to user iamhere23, who mentioned the idea of a remix in a comment on that first fic!! i decided to just roll with it :’)
> 
> i REALLY recommend reading the first fic before this one!! this /can/ be read as a standalone (there are scenes completely unique to this fic seeing as it’s tony’s viewpoint), but you’ll have more context & dialogue if you also know peter’s pov. plus i wasn’t gonna just copy-paste all of peter’s words into this one. it would have looked out of place.
> 
> warnings for mentions of kidnapping, alluding to death or dying (as in the worry is there but nobody discusses it directly), plenty of anxious feelings to go around, and non-graphic descriptions of injuries (peter’s banged up but nothing major or life threatening).
> 
> oh, and this is rated for language, so expect cursing.
> 
> same with the first fic though, this is ultimately just fluff and tony being a giant parent.
> 
> i hope yall enjoy !!

Tony was laying on the floor.

Steve and the team were out and about, scouring for leads. Happy had been in constant contact with police, with security, with Midtown faculty, ear to the ground. Pepper served as the middlewoman for all of it, rescheduling meetings and archiving emails so she could take calls, reroute them, file away promising information on anything, something, everything.

It was a mess. A real _mess_. Peter had been gone for three weeks, two days, and seven hours, taken right out from under their noses.

And Tony was laying on the floor.

“Hey, FRIDAY,” he directed at the lab ceiling, eyesight focusing beyond the holographic GPS floating six inches above his nose. “Power up the suit.”

There was a pause, probably the AI-equivalent of a tired breath through the nose.

“Sorry, boss. The Remember 2010 Protocol has not been lifted since the last time you asked, twenty-two minutes ago.”

Tony shrugged, shoulder blades rubbing the tiling beneath his back.

“Worth a shot.”

He’d been locked out not three hours after Peter’s disappearance.

Or, well… two minutes after Pepper told Rhodey about it, because Tony had only thought to inform someone else after a three-hour long, solo freakout/search session, consisting of no less than eight accidentally-shattered coffee mugs on the kitchen floor.

Rhodey had taken one look at Tony over their video call, said “no,” and ordered FRIDAY to shut down his suit access, something the AI had agreed to with a traitorous amount of eagerness.

Tony had protested rather… colorfully, to say the least, Rhodey being left to nearly shout over him.

_“You can still help, Tones! But if we’re gonna bring the kid home as fast as possible, we need to keep our heads and options clear.”_

After the line cut out, that definition of “helping” turned out to be a stumbling jog down the Tower stairwell to the communal living area, where Nat had promptly asked him if he was having a stroke. That was probably what it’d looked like.

But in reality, it had just felt impossible to speak around the threat of making it more official. To make this… this _grand announcement_ that Peter was gone.

Literally, _gone_. As in the movie-cliché interpretation of the word, snatched right off the fucking streets like a milk carton kid, like the nightmare every parent cast to the depths of their mind because there was _no way_ , not my kid, never my kid, _please_ —

He’d choked out _Peter_ in one second, _missing_ in another, and then their Netflix-binge couches and armchairs were suddenly debrief zone fucking one. Steve took over with that hardened set to his features, Clint cleared the coffee table so Nat could prop up her laptop, and Tony just collapsed into a seat and felt it all happen around him.

No matter what bullshit people spouted about _every small action matters_ , that had been the beginning and the end of his assistance. He’d been floating around, checking GPS signals. He’d follow Pepper like her mismatched shadow, and let May’s head drop onto his shoulder whenever the weight became too much.

They all told him it was helping, but when each day ended with the same amount of leads as the one before—meaning a heaping swamp of _zilch, nada, nothing_ —all Tony knew was that it wasn’t _him_ helping.

Those were FRIDAY’s signals and Pepper’s phone calls. It was May comforting him more than he could ever comfort her.

It was hesitation in Steve’s tone over their brief conversations, like he wasn’t sure how much non-information Tony could take before he keeled over. It was Happy stopping long enough in a hallway to give him a glance of half-exasperation, half-pity, before he gently shook the hand off his arm and rushed to another briefing.

And it was Peter being somewhere else, existing in a space that was on no city block, no map. This elusive location that possessed the audacity to not be _right here_ , right by Tony’s side.

That reality blinded him, choked him, mixed him with three shots fear and two of sheer anger, because it’d been three _fucking_ weeks now, and though nobody was mentioning the worst-case scenario out loud, Tony could see it anyways. It dripped into their lowered gazes, hooked in their slowing strides, tucked itself inside creases along their foreheads.

 _God_ , Tony thought, eyes screwed shut.

“God,” he muttered out loud, hands coming up in a frantic press over his eyelids. “God, god, god, _god, god_ —”

“Boss,” FRIDAY chimed in, cutting him off. “I’ve got an incoming call from May Parker.”

Tony sucked in a breath, removing the pressure and blinking away the resulting spots as he opened his eyes again.

May was coming over today for one of their “emotional check-ins,” as she called them. It was a routine that usually ended with _both_ of them laying on the floor, but that wasn’t until the afternoon. It was only a little past seven in the morning, so why would she be calling now?

“Patch her through,” he said, not sure if his heart should be beating in debilitating terror or shining, blissful _hope_.

“Tony?”

 _Hope_ , he decided immediately, because May’s tone, all yellow in the center and bleeding white on the edges, sheer love and elation, wasn’t just something he knew. He also _understood_ it.

_Hope. Oh my god, it’s hope._

He was on his feet in a flash, making a mad dash for the lab exit.

“Do you know where he is?” he asked. One quick hand snatched his phone up from a workbench, the other gesturing for FRIDAY to transfer the call over.

“Roscoe,” May breathed into the receiver, like a prayer. “It’s this little town in Sullivan County, off Route 17. We’d go there on vacation sometimes. Ben really liked it.”

She suddenly laughed, a bright noise cloyed with tears.

“He called me from there. Nobody else knows, and I… He escaped, Tony. I think he saw a chance and—and he just _left_. Christ, we had _Captain America_ out looking for him and everything! I mean…”

Her voice trailed off, with her still chuckling a little madly, a little hysterically, and Tony smiled because his brain was catching fire just the same. He smiled even as her laughter became twisted up with sobs, somewhat muffled by what he could picture as a finger between her teeth.

He looked crazy while May sounded it, and the both of them certainly felt it, too.

What a pair they were.

May was trying to speak again, voice thick.

“He told me—God, Tony, he told me he found a ride. That he’s driving himself home in a _Durango_ , of all things. Can you believe that?”

Tony snorted.

“I can, actually.”

He realized with a jolt that he’d wandered from the lab into his kitchen, and now that he stood in the tall patches of light provided by floor-to-ceiling windows, he had no clue what to do next.

Call the team, probably. That’d be a good place to start.

“Is he still there, May? In that town?”

“Absolutely not,” she huffed, amused. “I told him it’d be nice if he stayed put, but… Well, you know.”

Tony nodded, leaning against a counter and tapping an arrhythmic beat with his fingers.

“Yeah, that figures.” He scratched his chin. “Listen, I’ll just—I’ll call the guys. The team, all that. Knowing Steve, our kid will be coming back in the fucking quinjet.”

May laughed again.

“He’d probably like that.”

And when the first thought that flashed through Tony’s mind at her comment was a solid _I wouldn’t_ , he knew what to do next. The correct synapses hadn’t fired off to tell him the specifics, yet, but that was fine. All he needed—all he _ever_ needed when it came to Peter Parker—was the _why_.

“He’s coming home, May,” he stated, heading to the elevator and hitting the button for the garage.

“Yep. Took him long enough.”

________________

FRIDAY had to put the car into drive for him.

He’d at least been of a coherent enough mind to choose his favorite Audi, which had started off as just Peter’s favorite Audi for “reasons of vibe.” It was something that continued to elude Tony, but hadn’t stopped him from loving the myriad magnets and stickers the kid had plastered over the bumper.

Beyond that, though, he was slipping thoroughly back into panic mode.

The short call with Steve after hanging up with May had probably done the trick. It’d been like an electrical wire zapping his fingers, serious questions and requests for medical information all coming sharply, suddenly, one after the other.

“Do you know how many injuries?”

“Has he been starved?”

“What about dehydration?”

“Are you _certain_ he’s alone?”

Around question seven, Tony worried that he’d reunite with Peter as nothing more than a bubbling stain on his car’s leather seat. There was so much he hadn’t thought to ask May, because they’d been talking like deliriously happy parents first, not as if their kid was just numbers and statistics and tubes and IVs.

Shit, what if that’s what Peter needed, though? What if he _was_ starved, or dehydrated, or bleeding from the gut, or covered in burns, or cradling a shattered arm to his chest, or being held at gunpoint? What if they should have been operating under severe circumstances from the fucking get-go, and the first thing Tony had done was laugh about the _car_ Peter supposedly escaped in?

He tried to breathe ( _tried_ being the operative). No freakouts, please. He’d spent the past few forevers doing nothing but freak out, though that had been caught up in uncertainty and fear.

Peter had called May, Tony reminded himself. He’d called May, who had then called Tony to tell him Peter had called her. It was an information loop, a chain, a handhold in the dark, an alert that Peter could be many things right now, but at least he wasn't that _worst-case scenario_.

So fuck freaking out, at least for the moment. Fuck Steve’s questions, but not really. Tony would just be whatever Peter needed, and adapt accordingly.

“Fri, give me the shortest route from Roscoe to the city, not the other way around.”

They’d just turned out onto the street and Tony was feeling downright restless. He popped open the glove compartment and pulled out a pair of sunglasses, pushing them onto his nose with fingers that were only slightly shaky.

When the GPS lit up, Tony shook his head.

“No, no highways. Peter’s scared to drive on them, so just—okay, still the shortest route, but back roads only.”

The screen changed in a split-second, blue lines wiping backwards and swiping forwards, twisting down pixelated representations of New York state. Tony watched for the ETA and grimaced when it was calculated.

Three hours.

“Alright, don’t stop me unless I’m at risk of running somebody over. Clear?”

“Crystal, boss.”

________________

Being what Peter needed meant that right now, speeding down this empty road with nothing but farmland in either direction, he had to at least look like he had his shit together.

It was a separate story on the inside, though, where Tony felt like the exact opposite of capable. Outward calmness hid the inner sensation of being stretched to the thinnest possible thread, wondering with sharp pangs of loneliness what Peter would be saying right now.

Probably something he never thought Tony would actually laugh at.

Something like, “Wherever your shit is, I’m not helping you look for it.”

And then Tony _would_ laugh, even if it was just a short chuckle. The kid could be telling him why six was afraid of seven, and it’d amuse him to no end. For some reason that Tony couldn’t divine an understanding of, Peter was one of only, like, four people on this whole planet who he found genuinely _funny_.

He’d told him so, too, a few months back after something he said left Tony snorting into his coffee. It’d obviously been taken with a grain of salt, because Peter still blinked in surprise whenever he got him to laugh, then tried hiding his pleased smile behind his hand.

Tony missed that smile.

“Boss—”

He missed Peter.

“Boss, I think—”

He missed his kid.

“Boss, I’m overriding your orders—”

The Audi jolted unexpectedly beneath him, hard and screeching. FRIDAY responded to his indignant yelp by saying that he’d been “lost in thought and wasn’t paying attention,” then directed his attention to the rearview mirror because… because shit, he’d quite literally _missed his kid_.

The Durango sat a distance down the road, massive and looking like it’d seen better days. Tony pointed a finger at its reflection, mouth working to ask some stupid question with an obvious answer, before he cut his brain off by pure instinct alone and shifted the car into reverse.

He didn’t—couldn’t—take an eye off the SUV. A figure sat through the dark tint of the back window, moving around frantically as Tony rolled closer. The driver’s side door swung open, shaky legs dropped down onto the cracked pavement, and then Peter Parker, drenched in sweat and in clear need of shower, was rounding out onto the street, upright and breathing and _alive_.

Tony became distantly aware of speeding up his backwards advance, though everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. Rolling down his passenger side window was like watching grass grow, and easing along until he rumbled to a stop was molasses dripping from a spoon.

Peter’s mouth moved, and that was slow, too. Almost unbearably so. But the end result—a soft, disbelieving “Tony?”—had the effect of flicking a switch. He was a sudden burst of motion, of vibrating atoms, as he fumbled with his seat belt buckle.

“Holy _shit_ ,” he said before he practically leapt out of the car, because the leftover lag dictated there was nothing else _to_ say. He rounded the car, probably would have vaulted the hood if his legs wouldn’t hate him for it later.

There was a clatter as his sunglasses slipped onto the cement, but Tony registered that with a great deal of vagueness. Expensive accessories mattered _so much fucking less_ than this wide-eyed, visibly shaken teenager.

An alive one, too, he reminded himself. Beautifully alive. Tony would never get over that adjective.

When he came to stand right up in front of Peter, mere inches from his dirt-smeared face, the one-sided conversation with Steve hit like a nagging presence.

_Any unseen injuries?_

_Is the shaking because he’s hungry?_

_He’s so pale. What’s that a symptom of?_

Gentle fingers raised to flit over Peter’s arms, aiding him as he honed into the barest of reactions. Was anything swollen, broken, shattered, painful? Peter winced lightly at a spot inside his elbow, twitched a reddened wrist when Tony examined it. Each minute movement was catalogued, stored away, saved for later.

What did absolutely nothing to ease the bubbling anxiety was that, for the most part, Peter just _stood_ there. Some single-syllable mutterings came past his mouth, but nothing more than that.

Tony eventually turned his attention to the black eye. What had looked like a minor smudge from a distance (and would probably prove insignificant when Helen looked it over) was much more glaring, more painful to look at up close.

He skirted a thumb under its edge, barely fluttering against it, no pressure behind the gesture. But Peter jerked away like he’d been fucking _burnt_ , and Tony’s brain became a failing short-circuit under the barrage of “sorry, shit, I’m sorry” clambering up his throat.

Until, of course, his kid just started _talking_.

It proved the most amazing turn of events, hearing that voice, and it left Tony hanging on every word.

The kidnapping, the ransom money, Peter being held captive, alone and drugged up for weeks because some pathetic thugs were too damn scared to contact Tony for a transfer.

Losing his powers, talking to the walls, regaining his strength and hearing, and seeing that _chance_ May had mentioned. Taking it, using it, escaping, all on his own.

So many phone calls and searches and the goddamn Avengers working NYC like beat cops, and Peter had just driven into town in a stolen (re-stolen?) Durango and dialled his aunt’s cell phone.

The rambling finished with a harsh inhale, normal colors seeping back into the kid’s face as he sucked in one breath after another, and Tony found that all he could do was stare.

Stare and waver, aware of the wind and sunlight and the smell of apples, but so totally and completely fixated on this wonderful, incredible, _astounding_ kid, who had just burst back into life in the way he knew best. Like they were… lounging on the couch, or something. Like they were home.

Just running his mouth until his cheeks turned red.

 _That’s him_ , Tony thought, laughter catching the end of an exhale. _Oh my god. That’s—_

Eyes welling up in the corners, he moved to cup Peter’s face between calloused hands.

“Holy shit,” he said again, cheeks pulling on a wide grin. “Holy _shit. Peter_.”

He pulled his kid into his chest, careful of what he assumed were fractured ribs after seeing Peter wince while he breathed. There was something so complete here, so simple, and when trembling arms came up to loop around Tony’s back, a piece of the world shifted back into place.

He’d waited three weeks for this. He knew, bone-deep and surefire, that he’d wait _much_ longer if he had to. A whole eternity. Ten of them, twenty of them. The stretch of time wouldn’t matter, anyways, because it’d all hurt and heal in equal spades, for each and every instance.

This was precious. This was special. This, right here, was _made_ to be cherished, protected, longed for.

Tony whispered soothing words into Peter’s curls, rubbed circles into the nape of his neck and lines down his spine, held him firmly when he crumpled into sobs. He rocked back and forth in a cradling sway, hoping every motion read as safety, as _love_.

_You’re home now, buddy. And it’s gonna stay that way._

________________

He’d held Peter’s hand through the medical examinations. He and May, one parent for each side.

The kid hated hospitals with an obvious passion. The prodding, the needles, the sterility, the physical emptiness of it all… the nervousness was always so plain in his eyes, but he usually joked around in protest when someone asked if he was okay.

“I’m not a baby,” he’d snark, rolling his eyes. “I can handle it.”

There hadn’t been an ounce of protesting, joking or otherwise, this time. So, Tony held his hand, and everyone came out much happier for it.

A few hours later, with Peter tucked away in bed and snoring lightly, not much had changed.

He and May had unconsciously decided to just camp out in their kid’s room for the remainder of the day, and then into the night. They pulled in seats and blankets, books and food, settling in right and proper. Helen had informed them that Peter would be conked out for a while, and they wanted to be the first people he saw when he woke up.

Somehow, what had started as both of them in arm chairs—leant forward or slouched back, legs kicked up or stretched out, always at an angle where they could easily rub a sleeping shoulder or play with unruly curls—had progressed into both of them resting atop the oversized twin bed, Peter squished between them.

Their kid had twisted around in his sleep, as per usual. Laying on his back, his head was turned enough so part of his face pressed into May’s thigh. A gangly arm had slung over Tony’s lap, with an equally as lanky leg stretching out from tangled covers to cross over his shin.

Admittedly, it was a pretty tight squeeze. But though they’d both wake up with some aches in their backs, it wasn’t as if they’d care on a normal day, either.

May, pushed into the corner with a book held before her face, traced an absentminded thumb along her nephew’s cheekbone. Tony responded to emails on the other side, one hand fumbling with his phone while the other rubbed Peter’s knuckles.

The blinds were pulled shut, every light off save for the dim bedside lamp they’d flipped on once Peter was assuredly lost in dreamland. It was warmth, it was safety, it was rightness in the world.

Long past the point of caring about errors, Tony tapped send with a long-suffering sigh. Fifteen replies down, so only about… fifty more to go, give or take a couple dozen.

He quietly placed the phone down on the nightstand, allowing himself a moment to at least rub the strain from his eyes.

“Hard at work?” May murmured, not looking up from her book.

“Yeah,” he groaned back, tone hushed. “Just helping Pepper out, since she put everything on hold for three weeks.”

“Wow, that’s nice of you.”

Tony lowered his hand and smirked.

“If I didn’t know any better, Miss Parker, I’d say you sound surprised right now. What, do you doubt me or something?”

May propped her book against her knee to flip the page, head shaking and lips upturned.

“Oh, please don’t get me caught up in another friendly banter competition right now. It’ll only end with this one waking up.”

“Hey, you started it,” Tony mused, but he fell dutifully silent and looked down at Peter’s face, lax in sleep and mouth hanging open. A smear of drool trailed down toward his chin, which Tony wiped away with the bottom hem of his shirt.

The spine of a book poking his cheek had him turning to see May smiling at him, her eyes narrowed.

“What?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing. You just looked too sappy for a second there. I had to snap you out of it before you hurt yourself.”

Tony squinted.

“You’re mean to me.”

May went into a full-blown grin, the bridge of her nose wrinkling.

“This is what you signed up for, Stark,” she returned, removing her glasses and folding them up. They were settled atop her book, both of which were then passed to Tony with a silent request to place them on the nightstand. Then, she tipped her head back into the wall and let her eyes drift shut.

Tony shifted, too, work now forgotten. Moving so he could see Peter with less of an awkward angle to his neck, he slipped his now free arm underneath May’s to card lazy fingers through the kid’s hair.

Peter huffed out another light snore, and Tony hummed thoughtfully.

“I told him I loved him,” he whispered, something like awe in his voice.

May cocked her head a bit, eyes still closed.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. When I found him.”

He blinked a few times in rapid succession. All of it—those three weeks, the sleepless nights, the reunion—felt blanketed in a degree of absurdity.

“I don’t know what it was,” he continued. “He was just… he was _there_ , all of a sudden. Completely out of nowhere, talking a mile a minute like he always does. And it was like… like this _wow_ feeling inside my chest.”

“A _wow_ feeling?” May echoed, chuckling lightly.

“Yeah, it’s—it isn’t the best descriptor, but I’m flying with what I got.”

“Mm. Well, these sorts of things do tend to be a bit indescribable.”

Tony smiled at that wording.

_These sorts of things._

He’d never, in a million years, thought he’d be made for _these sorts of things_.

But if he was good at anything, it was being proven wrong. He was basically a pro at it, and he tucked a stray curl back from Peter’s head with a gentleness that demonstrated the fact.

“He told me he loved me, too. Right before he fell asleep and everything, when you were making tea.”

May did look at him then, head tilted down just enough so she could consider him past barely-raised eyelids. A glimmer of fond amusement sparkled there, for the strangeness and wonderfulness of it all.

It was a snapshot moment, before she hummed and shut her eyes again.

“You two were certainly made for each other, Tony.”

The man gazed at her from his periphery.

“How so?”

“Because you’re both the most clueless smart people I have ever met.”

He raised a questioning brow, though he knew she couldn’t see it, then just huffed a breath in agreement past a secret, soft smile.

“Hopeless, too?” he murmured, his own eyes slipping shut.

“Utterly.”

________________

They fell asleep just like that, hands and arms and fingers unconsciously curling up, protective and tender.

Just a messy little cocoon made for three, a personal sliver of safety they’d carved out on their own terms.

A family.

**Author's Note:**

> did you guys know that i love may & tony? because i do. literally the most iconic co-parents. 
> 
> as always, thank you for reading, leaving kudos, comments, all of that, and i hope you’re all staying safe!!
> 
> <3000


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